Morocco’s Raja Casablanca has requested that the Confederation of African Football open an urgent investigation into a refereeing “scandal” that occurred during their CAF Champions League quarter-final first-leg loss to Egypt’s Al-Ahly on Saturday.

Al-Ahly, the reigning African champions, triumphed 2-1 in Cairo, with the first goal coming from a hotly contested penalty converted by Amr El-Soulia.

Following the match, Raja President Anis Mahfouz issued a strong statement to CAF, protesting that referee Jean-Jacques Ndala of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the supervisor of the video assistant referee system, Algerian Mehdi Abeid, had made “intended errors” that influenced the match’s outcome.

Ndala had asked VAR to evaluate a potential penalty for a suspected handball inside the Raja penalty area in the first minutes of the all-Arab match.

Despite television replays from several angles indicated that the ball did not touch his hand but instead hit his leg, VAR confirmed the penalty judgment against Raja defender Ilias Haddad.

They had submitted photos to the complaint letter revealing the refereeing faults, particularly the penalty award, which the statement called “imaginary,” according to Raja.

Al-Ahly’s second goal, scored by Hussein El-Shahat, was again claimed by the Moroccans to have come from an offside position that was not examined by VAR.

Raja equalized on the stroke of halftime through midfielder Mohamed Zrida, but any thoughts of a comeback were dashed when Marouane Hadhoudi was sent off on the hour.

On Friday, the return match will be held in Casablanca.